


Wolf 359 Game Night

by DestinyIslands



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 08:57:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13143315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DestinyIslands/pseuds/DestinyIslands
Summary: It’s the end of the first week of the mission, and everything is going…alright? Eiffel has been rather resigned, unsure of himself really, and Hilbert has been giving everyone the cold shoulder. The AI system (Hera right?) doesn’t talk much besides when spoken to, but when she does she says some strange things. But Minkowski knows that the crew can come together, and what better way than a game night?





	Wolf 359 Game Night

**Author's Note:**

> For the Wolf 359 Big Bang! :) Thank you to defenestratin for being my wonderful artist.

“Officer Eiffel,” Hera’s voice manifests through the quiet, buzzing atmosphere of the ship, “Minkovski wants to see you on the observation deck.”

Eiffel jumps up from where he was definitely not using the coms-system to record himself talking in a robotic voice. He tries to regain his composure as if the AI system could not see every action of his. “Oh, what now?” he groans under his breath, not bothering to respond to Hera directly.

He goes through the mental checklist of tasks assigned to him throughout the week (which is so long by the way!). Update the star charts? Didn’t do that. Create a log to send to command? No thank you, haven’t they ever heard of privacy? And so on and so forth until he realizes that he may have, actually, not exactly done any of his duties.

But obviously he has been busy, right? Like, of course he had his priorities straight when he decided to explore the ship to find a hiding place for his cigarettes earlier, as well as doing various other extremely important things (or mandatory jobs, like Eiffel likes to call them).

So of course, he shouldn’t be in trouble, right?

But then again, Minkovski looks like she is losing patience. The week started out with enthusiasm and smiles, but he saw the disappointment in her eyes that made the sides of her smile drop slightly each time she learned he had blown off another task. He has seen the same look before. The encouraging teacher with an unwilling student…. Now would it be safer to stay in the coms room, or should he seek haven somewhere else?

“Eiffel, she requested that you come down now,” Hera said. “She said that it’s a reward?”

“Wait, really? Why didn’t you say so?” Eiffel looks up at where he assumes Hera resides, before gaining a puzzled expression, “What for?”

“I’m not sure, but she has a lot of stuff down there.” Hera says.

“I guess it’s safe to go down there then?” Eiffel cautiously makes his way out of the observation room, unsure of what to expect.

 

~

 

Minkovski, after a long week of planning in her rec time, finally places the last bit of velcro on the bottom of the Sorry! Board to ensure that it can’t float away if they happen to use it. Honestly, the last thing she anticipated when coming to space was the amount of velcro needed to run a station.

Hilbert enters the room, “Minkovski, may I ask why I am being taken away from very important laboratory work.”

Minkovski, not noticing that he came in until he spoke, now pops her head up with a smile, “Don’t worry Dr. Hilbert, we’ll be on the Hephaestus plenty long enough for you to be in the lab. But right now, I have planned,” she moves to show the large amount of floating board games, “a game night!”

“A game night?” Hilbert says, glaring at the younger woman, already deciding to ignore her the next time he is busy.

She chooses to ignore Hilbert’s clear anger as well at the moment, “We’re just waiting on Eiffel now. Speaking of, where is he, Hera?”

“He is-,” Hera is interrupted by Eiffel coming through the automatic station doors.

“Commander Minkowski? You wanted to see me?”

Minkovski, cringing at how he pronounces her name, gestures towards the games, “Officer Eiffel, as a reward for a week of hard work and adjusting to our temporary new lives on the station, I have put together a game night for us.” The other crew members don’t respond, Hilbert is glaring and rubbing at his temples as if warding off a migraine, while Eiffel, who she thought would like this sort of thing, is being uncharacteristically quiet. It even feels like to Minkovski that Hera is staring at her despite her lack of physical form.

She clears her throat, “Hilbert, why don’t you choose the first game?”

For a split second, he looks towards the door as if considering leaving on the spot, but he turns his gaze back.

“Very well,” he says with a sigh while kicking off the wall to propel himself towards the various boxes. He pushes several aside before grabbing a chess board and bringing it down to the bolted down table.

“Alright, an exciting game of chess,” Minkovski says, “sounds fun, doesn’t it Eiffel? Why don’t you and Dr. Hilbert play first.”

“Are you sure about that, Commander Minkowski? Maybe, it would be better for you to go first, and then I could play the winner,” Eiffel says, glancing at Hilbert and then back at Minkovski.

“That’s fine Eiffel, you go first,” she says while pulling Eiffel towards the table. Each of the three take a seat and strap themselves down at the chairs where the board is velcro-ed down, except for Eiffel who claims that he likes to float.

 

~

 

“That makes Hilbert: 12, Eiffel and Minkovski: 0” Hera says.

Eiffel, in a motion meant to imitate flopping back into a chair with his arms crossed, floats backwards with a huff, “This is getting ridiculous, who knew that Hilbert was the Michael Jordan of chess.”

“This is very easy compared to experiments, no surprise that you wouldn’t win Eiffel,” Hilbert says, getting over his previous apprehension to this event.

“Well of course you could win this, but could you win a game that requires true skill?”

“And that would be?”

“I challenge you to a duel,” Eiffel slams his hands down on the table leaning across it to look eye to eye with Hilbert, “of Twister!”

As Hilbert’s face scrunches up in confusion, Minkovski speaks up, “You can’t play Twister in space Eiffel.”

“What! Why not? You could, like, use more velcro to make our hands and feet stick to the wall, and, like, Hera could be the spinner and- “

“There is no gravity in space Eiffel, you can’t fall down! Nobody would win.”

To this, Eiffel reassumes floating backwards with his hands crossed against his chest, but then quickly picks back up, “Well then there’s only one other option.”

“And that would be?” Hilbert says, wondering if he will be able to keep his winning streak.

“The epitome of American board games,” Eiffel says, “Monopoly.”

“Well I do remember bringing a Monopoly board with me,” Minkovski says, unstrapping herself from the chair and floating above them to find it.

She brings it down again attaching it to the table and strapping herself down as per protocol.

“Is there any chance I could play this game Minkovski?” Hera asks.

Eiffel answers for her, “Sorry Hal, but this game requires hands.”

“You mean Hera.”

Eiffel cracks open the box. “I call the car piece.”

 

~

 

After an hour (largely spent explaining the game to Hilbert who insisted that it was pointless), all the properties on the board have been bought and the game shows no signs of stopping. Minkovski holds a slight lead over Hilbert, while Eiffel is in dead last.

Upon reaching his turn, Eiffel takes a long look at the board and sighs, “I’m bored,”

“You are the one that insisted we play this game, though,” Hilbert says, clearly annoyed with his complaining.

“Well I’m bored now.”

“As soon as you see you are losing, you want to quit,” Hilbert says.

“Hey that’s not true, I just have a lot to get done tonight,” he trails off.

“How do you think I feel, I never wanted to do this in the first place.” Hilbert’s voice is rising now, “I have important laboratory work to attend to, but instead I am wasting my time here on pointless games.”

Sensing an argument, Eiffel raises his voice too, “No offense Doc, but I wasn’t exactly jumping up and down to play a game with the two of you either.”

“What do you mean by that Eiffel?” Minkovski says, trying to intervene.

“You two are complete strangers to me, I’ve spent most of this week by myself in this big, empty spaceship,” he turns away from the others, not waiting for anyone as he leaves the room.

The silence that is left behind leaves the other two awkwardly staring at one another.

Hilbert finally gets up, “This is pointless,” he says making sure to avoid Minkovski’s gaze, “I’m leaving now.”

All that remains are Minkovski and the ‘pointless’ board games.

She sighs, individually picking each board game up, including the half-played game of monopoly.

Time keeps passing in a spaceship light years from Earth, with its residents even farther apart from each other.


End file.
